Sudan paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: Army

AFP , Sunday 4 May 2025

Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the Sudanese government in the country's two-year war.

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Smoke rises from the airport of Port Sudan following reported attacks early on May 4, 2025. AFP

 

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) "targeted Osman Digna Air Base, a goods warehouse and some civilian facilities in the city of Port Sudan with suicide drones", army spokesman Nabil Abdullah said in a statement.

He reported no casualties but "limited damage". Smoke was seen billowing from Port Sudan's airport.

The paramilitaries have expanded the scope and frequency of their drone attacks on army-held areas since losing control of areas, including most of the capital, Khartoum, in March.

On Saturday, a source from the Sudanese government reported a rare drone attack on Kassala, on Sudan's eastern border with Eritrea, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the nearest RSF-held territory.

In the early days of the war, the government relocated from Khartoum to Port Sudan, which until Sunday's attack had been spared the violence.

UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.

Since April 2023, the regular army, headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has been battling the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, in a brutal war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.

The regular army controls the centre, east and north, while the RSF holds sway in nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and parts of the south.

In late February, the RSF and its allies signed a charter in Kenya announcing a plan to establish a rival government to the army-aligned administration.

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